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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Skyscraper" data-source="post: 3329535" data-attributes="member: 48518">Finding the first axis stoneThe PCs were in an area of the world that is called the Zone, which is essentially a cursed valley where animals and plants are distorted into maligned versions of themselves and where survival is difficult in itself. The Zone is a semi-desert, with some smallish trees (15-20 feet) and the occasional underbrush.So the PCs are (level 4):Thorak: male dwarf fighterYorrick: male human rogueIaroslav: male human clericKrapounia: female human barbarian/sorceressLevainthel: female elven fighter/ranger/rogueTwo NPC allies are with them:Olaf: male human fighterVolchenkov: male human fighter/wizardThey had had all sorts of warnings from numerous NPCs that crossing the Zone was not recommendable, but at one point they decided to cross it nonetheless [Smile] .  It was not their first trip in the Zone, so they figured that if they had been able to handle it a first time, a second time should not be too problematic.  However, they never stayed for more than a day or two, whereas their actual trip was going to take at least a a week and half, and take them beyond the fringe of the Zone, deep into its heart.So they journey through the Zone, starting on the fringe and gradually going deeper into the valley, fighting strange warped animals having bone horns protruding through their fur at odd places, going around a large (200+) troop of zombies walking towards an unknown destination, surviving the difficulties of the terrain such as quicksand, acidic moss, poisonous flowers, animated vines, scorpions, burrowing monsters, and so on.After a few days of this, they're starting to realize that they might have a bit more than they signed up for, but they still want to plow on.  At one point, after having left the fringe of the Zone, they find a large stony field without any vegetation, but having numerous large stones everywhere that allow you to walk between each.  There, they get ambushed by two ettins that give them a hard time and they need rest after that battle.The PCs decide to put up camp right there and then.  The sorceress sends her silver raven familiar to scout around, and obtains information from him that the stony field forms a circle at the center of which there is a region where the sand is black, which is devoid of any stones but a tall one standing a the center of the blackened area.  Their curiosity gets the better of them, and they decide to investigate.  Well, actually, the curiosity of two of the five of them only.  (They had specifically told themselves that they would not split up, but as in any good horror movie... they split up! Oh well...) Anyway, the sorceress and the elven ranger decide to follow the raven back to the blackened area, and they indeed find a circle of blackened sand devoid of any stones, save for a central perfectly rectangular upright black stone jutting out from the sand.  The stone is about 6 inches thick, with runes on its periphery, but with its two large surfaces being flat and completely bare.  Looking at them, they're so smooth that they're almost like mirrors and you would expect to see your reflection even from afar, but they give away no image.  But the most unsettling fact about the stones is that they shed their shadow *towards* the sun, instead of on the opposite side of it.The sorceress and the ranger realize that this is probably a so-called axis stone (and they're right), which is a portal to other planes that was closed off thousands of years ago.  Many think that the corruption in the Zone originates from these axes stones (which is also true).The sorceress and the ranger thus decide that, since they're here, they'll check out the axis stone closer up, and take out a parchment and some ink to copy the runes.  They walk up to the stone, write down the simple runes, and as they put their paper back into their pockets, gruesome tentacles made of decaying flesh suddenly sprout from the ground to try to grab them and their horses.  The tentacles are not long, but as they fight them off and try to move towards the periphery of the circle and out of it, more tentacles sprout from the ground to attack them.  (To this day, the players believe that the tentacles belonged to an underground creature, when in fact they were inanimate plant-like hellish things that existed close to the axis stone due to the corruption that seeps from one layer of hell onto the material plane through the not-quite perfectly closed portal. )  Anyway, they're rapidly in over their heads, since the tentacles are very hard to fight considering that once they wrap around your legs, they become real hard to hack at. They deal small amounts of damage only however.Realizing that their situation might be complex early on, the sorceress sends her raven to call for help from their friends who stayed at the camp, and by the time they arrive, all of them except Olaf the NPC who stayed at the camp to guard their stuff, the ranger is close to getting out of the circle with her horse, but the sorceress' horse has been constricted to death by the tentacles and drawn underground and the barbarian-sorceress is pinned to the ground as she tries to fight off the damn things.  Her only weapon, a greatsword, is obviously unwieldy in such a sitution, which doesn't help.  The rogue goes in to help the sorceress with his horse, but his horse gets grabbed by tentacles too.So everyone starts to try to help those that are stuck inside, shooting arrows, but no one else wants to step on the dark sand (with reason).  This is where one of the PCs' ennemies, a bearded devil named Archibald, dashes into combat against the heros located outside the dark circle.  He had been defeated by the PCs in an underground lair just before they entered deeply into the Zone, teleporting away before they could kill him, and he had followed them since, waiting for the right moment to attack.  They had even spotted him from afar, not realizing that it was him, but never managing to actually draw him into a trap and eventually just letting him be.  So in comes Archibald, with his long Guisarme that he wields with the proficiency of one who has done so for thousands of years.  The weapon's shaft looks almost to be an extension of his arms, and he rotates it around him and back and forth and slashes up and down in a spectacular flurry of blows that each deal significant damage.  Of course, everyone outside the circle, namely the cleric, the dwarf fighther and the NPC fighter/wizard, all stop helping those inside the circle to concentrate on Archibald, as they are perfectly aware that he is mighty indeed.The thing about the devil Archibald is that his cursed weapon deals wounding damage, which means that anyone hit by it starts bleeding profusely until the wound is taken care of.  So he rapidly hits all three heros standing outside the circle to have his wounding damage do its job, and then goes on to work on the two fighters and more specicically on the dwarf who he knows to be the stronger of the three.  The fight is going his way, partly due to his surprise attack, partly due to his wounding damage, partly due to his few other special abilities (such as damage reduction which kept him in relatively good shape), and partly due to good rolls including a critical hit on the dwarf that expended the cleric's last cure spell above level 1.  The PCs in the circle are having a lot of trouble dealing with the tentacles, and the sorceress is losing her battle as she is now severely wounded by the grappling tentacles. The rogue's horse gets killed, and the rogue now has to contend with the tentacles himself.They're all starting to feel like they're not going to get out of this situation alive.  And i'm thinking the same thing. My first TPK as a DM! I'm not happy about this at all.This is where the dwarf fighter calls for and rolls a critical hit with his might dwarven waraxe!  It was really intense as all players and myself were really into the fight, and as anyone rolled each round to see what happened, all the others were super attentive to the results as everyone fate depended on them.  So when the dwarf's player took his die and (for the first time) said "i need a crit" and got it, the room erupted under the five players' cheers!  Not only that, but the dwarf rolled near maximum damage, which is very signficant since his waraxe deals tripple damage on crits.  So the tide turned as the devil was suddenly reduced to about 40% of his hit points (they did't know that of course, but they saw that the last wound was important).The devil, being an immortal not totally devoid of intelligence, decides that the time is ripe to get out of there and seek vengeance later.  Indeed, he might be able to take out one of the remaining three opponents, maybe two, but he would probably go down before all three were dead.  So he decides that the risk is useless and decides to flee.  Like he did once before, when he had almost killed the sorceress before teleporting his butt out of there. But the thing is, to teleport without chancing attacks of opportunity against him that might disrupt the magic, he needs to move out from between the two fighters that he is engaged against.  So he does that, he moves away, and that provokes attacks of opportunity, but he figures that he's largely strong enough to resist these attacks, the important thing is that his teleport not be disrupted because two round of combat might prove fatal.  The fighter/wizard NPC swings and misses.Now all the players know, for having seen him flee once before, that the devil's plan is to teleport away.  And they know that it means he'll be back, attacking them when they're vulnerable, like he did just now.  So they don't like him going away one bit.And the dwarf 's player does it again.  He calls for a second critical hit in a row, rolls, and sure enough, gets a 20 on his 20-sided die!  He confirms his crit, rolls damage, and again deals close to the maximum amount he could get (over 40 points of damage, which is a very important amount at their level).  And it's just enough to kill Archibald.  Again, the players roar their pleasure as the hellish beast crumbles to the ground, mortally wounded.The cleric then thinks to use one of his granted clerical powers (from the "travel" domain) to walk through the tentacles unhindered, and it works!  So with help from him who cures her, the sorceress manages to reach the outer periphery of the circle, and the rogue manages to get out also.Close call, and everyone lets out a long breath of relief as they were pretty sure that their end had arrived.The ranger takes the skin of the devil (all his interiors have disolved into a brownish goo that flowed out of his skin), and puts it in his packsack in hope of using it to scare off lizard men later on.  (I had decided that the devil would die in this way.) At this point, no one knows that he has the devil skin but him.They then discuss the matter, and realize that they won't be able to cross the Zone completely, they're not powerful enough.  They continue their journey by backtracking (more or less) to leave the Zone.  But the creatures of this cursed place smell the blood and the fear, and the attacks against them increase in frequency!  That following night, they are being attacked so much that they can't get a good night's sleep.  With no spells left, they drink the few healing potions that they have, but they prove insufficient as one, then another of the heros fall unconscious, but not dead, to the repeated attacks.  A fiendish bat swarm, then dire rats, then other stronger beasts attack them, relentlessly.  Finally, when morning comes, they've notrested enough to gain their spells, and they're pretty much fed up with the entire situation.  Three out of seven (the two NPCs and the rogue) are out cold, but stable and living... for the moment.At first light, the ranger announces that she's taken the devil's skin in her packsack as they discuss this and that.  Hearing this news, the other PCs come to think that the skin might be the reason for the increased frequency of attacks.  The barbarian-sorceress in particular gets it into her head to rid the party of the skin.  She's a strong one, the sorceress, the strongest of the group.  So she forces her way to the ranger's packsack and takes out the skin.  As everyone's on edge due to the recent events, the ranger takes offense at this, and starts threatening the sorceress and tells her to let go of her packsack, but she won't.  So the ranger takes out her rapier and starts moving towards the sorceress, but the dwarf interposes himself between the two, as he also thinks that getting rid of the useless skin can't do any wrong. But now the ranger is seeing red, and she hits the dwarf with the flat of her blade.  The dwarf doesn't like this at all, draws his axe and hits the ranger back, but he doesn't use the flat of his blade.  A short combat ensues, but the dwarf has so few hit points left that a single hit knocks him unconscious, close to death.  Seeing that, the sorceress draws her greatsword and attacks the ranger, finally killing her right there and then!Woa!  Now that was an unexpected turn of events!  They survive the creatures of the Zone, Archibald the devil, but kill each other off!In the end, the dwarf was stabilized on death's doorstep (-9), and by resting for the entire day the cleric got his spells back (they were attacked a single time during daytime) and cured everyone back to relative health, except the dead ranger of course (there are no resurrection spells in my campaign, but the cleric would have been too low-level to cast one even if there had been some).  They then managed to get out of the Zone, after being attacked some more over the next couple of days.That was one intense event in our playing time.  The craziness of the entire thing was so unreal, but so incredible!  The players appeared to be in almost as much stress as their tired and wounded PCs (well, maybe not as much, but *some* stress), and the actions that resulted therefrom and the fight between the PCs was something else!  When everyone's going crazy, things like that occur, and it was incredible that the mood around the table somehow reflected in part how the PCs must have been feeling.  It was one hell of an outcome.For those who wonder, the devil's skin had nothing to do with the attacks. But it doesn't matter, really. All players were amazed at the intensity of the game session, including the dead ranger's player (who was the most stubborn IMO in not letting go of the devil's skin).Sky</blockquote>

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